FAT union urges ministry to order rehiring of six

By Ann Maxon / Staff reporter

Sat, Feb 10, 2018 - Page 3

The Far Eastern Air Transport (FAT) workers’ union yesterday urged the Ministry of Labor’s Unfair Labor Practices Adjudication Board to order the company to rehire six union members who were fired for participating in the union’s activities.

The six include the union’s president, who was fired in October last year following a meeting of the board in May last year, Taoyuan Confederation of Trade Unions member Wei Yu-ling (魏豫綾) said at a news conference outside the Taiwan Academy of Banking and Finance, where the board was to meet on the issue.

The union’s president was fired via text message on the grounds that he had interfered with the company’s management by posting information about the union on the office bulletin, she said.

The union contends that the company has consistently suppressed its members since May, when it fired 17 union members before a scheduled meeting of the board to resolve a labor dispute that took place in March last year.

It was in that meeting that the company confirmed the 17 former employees were members of the union, Wei said.

“The new labor law basically leaves workers to negotiate with employers on their own,” Wei said.

She said the board was “backward,” citing a committee member who questioned the union members’ description of their plight and asked if anyone had quit or refused to join the union since May.

“The basis for determining whether the company has been suppressing the union should be whether it has done things with that intention and what it has done. Whether the union has lost members is irrelevant,” Wei said.

“We hope the board will today recognize that the company has been trying to eliminate the union and that it has contravened Article 35 of the Labor Union Act (工會法),” confederation president Chuang Fu-kai (莊福凱) said.